#BePelvicHealthAware: Sharing clinical best practices on pelvic floor health through whiteboard animations, social media and a dedicated website

The pelvic floor is at the bottom of a woman’s belly and supports vagina, bladder, bowel and womb in their daily functions. It is made of muscles and strong surrounding tissues. Pregnancy, childbirth and the few months after are times of rapid change for the pelvic floor. A woman’s body naturally adapts to pregnancy and tissues are able to stretch, but the baby’s passage through the birth canal can sometimes cause lasting damage to the mother’s pelvic area. This can lead to urine, stool or gas leaking, vaginal bulging, poor body image, loss of vaginal sensation, pain and avoidance of sex. Fifty percent of aging women have pelvic symptoms, which may disappear gradually or last a long time. 

There is a lot of misinformation about this. Women often don’t talk about it because of embarrassment. Our team recently completed grant-funded studies showing that:

1. Online information is often incorrect
2. Pregnant women are poorly informed
3. We can successfully enhance prevention through a workshop

We created animated videos and plan a dedicated website to inform women about how to best care for the pelvic floor in pregnancy and beyond. We aim to to raise awareness of pelvic floor health, prevention and treatment options.